Youth Teams
There is no doubt that Youth teams (YT) deserve their own chapter. This is because of their specifics, as there's no other way to develop players in a similar way like it can be done with 14 - 17yo players in your YT. Some clubs are unable to include youngsters to their senior team at all, often because they are playing against immense opponents on weekly basis, their goals are set high and they can't afford to play inexperienced players in the all-important matches. Such teams are still able to take a good care of their Youth teams, while teams focusing primarily on the youngsters - even inside their senior team lineups - can double the fun and their prospect by having a quality Youth team. It's easy to start your own Youth team, all you need is a single 14 - 15 yo player, promoted from Camp and this is a start of the team that can sustain up to 12 players. In theory a new player can join the Youths every Friday, but after you reach the maximum of 12, you must either sack or promote players in order to release places for the newcomers. Players up to 17 years of age can be included in YT, when they reach 18, they are automatically promoted by your club personnel. You will notice that one quarter of the players coming from camps will be typically aged 14 and majority 15 years of age. It costs you nothing to fire a YT member, just make sure to understand that there's no way back; once fired, a youngster will retire indefinitely. Player must turn 16, before he's eligible for promotion. It costs 25.000 to promote youngster into your senior team. Promoted players can never again return to the YT. Youth team players can be included in the gym training (physical training), but can't take part in first team matches, so they are not able to train with the first team as well. They can't compete in the 3-point contest and can't play for the national team (other than taking a honorable spot in the improvised U15 selection). They don't have a professional contract, so wage only reflect their age and not their actual quality. In a similar way, their value (Youth value) - while very relevant for the squad assessment - cannot be applied to comparisons with the senior team players. One of the main distinctions between the senior team members and the youths is how they develop. When you first observe a newly acquired youngster, all you have is coach's recommendation, but actual skills are a mystery. You can observe the level of talent, which is a brief description of his potential future workrate, but it has no impact towards his youth career success. Players are developed individually, skill after skill. Every youngster can be given a skill to focus on and the amount of time to develop that skill. If your coach is less experienced you will probably face 4 weeks per skill limit and that might not be enough for good results. The most experienced coaches will give players an option for 9 weeks focus, but going down that road will require a good plan on how many skills you plan to develop, before promoting a player. Right balance is the key of youth development. So how exactly do youth players develop skills? First you need a good coach, preferably someone with ability to develop youth at level 75 or higher. For new teams it's sometimes recommended to use the instant promotions instead for first couple of seasons and during that time train good prospects inside the senior team in order to earn money for a great coach and switch to youth teams after that. So when you have decided which skill to focus on and for how long - make sure that it's your final decision, because you won't be able to change that until the training is completed. Re-focusing on the same skill (later on) is possible, but there's no point in doing that, unless a better coach is used or in case of a poor skill. You also need to know that any attempts to develop great skills in 4 or 5 weeks are not that likely to work. You'll just have to find the right time-frame here, 9 weeks can give a great result, but the difference between 4 and 7 weeks is much bigger than the difference between 6 and 9 and it's unlikely that you will be able to develop all skills if you only use 9 weeks focus. After setting the instructions, a player will start developing his new skill according to a provisional workrate. It's a situation-specific value and it probably won't be the same when he's going to work on his next skill. Provisional workrate is based on: coach's experience, coach's ability to handle youngsters, some luck, just a bit of coach's workrate and - very important - total number of weeks. You can see provisional workrate as soon as you finalize your instructions on which skill should be developed next. Every Thursday, training results are in and when the focus time expires, new skill become visible. Developed skill is a result of several factors: provisional workrate (as described above), already existing skills, player's physique and his character. For example, tall and heavy players will find it very difficult to develop handling, dribbling or quickness with the same ease as short and lightweight players. If rebounding is in question, situation will be just the opposite. And an example to showcase the importance of the characters is a selfish player, who will be very much motivated to develop his shooting, but not that much keen when focusing on his passing or defense. So why promote a player before the age of 18? For numerous reasons! With number one reason - after becoming more and more skillful, player will find it extremely hard to develop new skills in same way as before. Eventually, a time should come, best to promote him, either to play and train him inside your first team or to sell him on the market and release a spot for someone younger and eager to learn fast. Players will also find it difficult to get any experience at all without being involved in first team matches and special talents will surely be hunted by the U19 national coaches. So Youth team should really be just that first step for players in their development. Players usually won't have all skills developed when they are promoted, so make sure they'll develop skills that suit them best! Undeveloped skills will be revealed after promotion, but will not be as good as skills that were properly developed. Category:BS Terms